Considering Human Interaction and Variability in Automatic Text Simplification

Jenia Kim, Stefan Leijnen, Lisa Beinborn


Abstract
Research into automatic text simplification aims to promote access to information for all members of society. To facilitate generalizability, simplification research often abstracts away from specific use cases, and targets a prototypical reader and an underspecified content creator. In this paper, we consider a real-world use case – simplification technology for use in Dutch municipalities – and identify the needs of the content creators and the target audiences in this use case. The stakeholders envision a system that (a) assists the human writer without taking over the task; (b) can provide diverse alternative outputs, tailored for specific target audiences; and (c) can explain and motivate the suggestions that it outputs. These requirements call for technology that is characterized by modularity, explainability, and variability. We believe that these are important research directions that require further exploration.
Anthology ID:
2024.tsar-1.6
Volume:
Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Text Simplification, Accessibility and Readability (TSAR 2024)
Month:
November
Year:
2024
Address:
Miami, Florida, USA
Editors:
Matthew Shardlow, Horacio Saggion, Fernando Alva-Manchego, Marcos Zampieri, Kai North, Sanja Štajner, Regina Stodden
Venue:
TSAR
SIG:
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
52–60
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2024.tsar-1.6
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Jenia Kim, Stefan Leijnen, and Lisa Beinborn. 2024. Considering Human Interaction and Variability in Automatic Text Simplification. In Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Text Simplification, Accessibility and Readability (TSAR 2024), pages 52–60, Miami, Florida, USA. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
Considering Human Interaction and Variability in Automatic Text Simplification (Kim et al., TSAR 2024)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2024.tsar-1.6.pdf